Give Timeframe By Aug 27 For Survey On Reservations In Local Body Polls: High Court To Telangana Government

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court has directed the state government to inform it by August 27 of the time it needed for conducting a survey to come out with recommendations on reservations for BCs and other categories in local body elections. A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas was hearing a bunch of petitions seeking implementation of reservations for BCs category wise in local body elections, including in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. 

The bench referred to the Supreme Court's earlier direction that states should first set up a dedicated commission to conduct a "contemporaneous empirical survey" to collect data of various categories of BCs by the panel before earmarking reservations. The petitioners challenged the powers given by the BC Finance Corporation to collect the empirical data of BC, saying that cannot be done by a corporation and needs a dedicated commission to do it. 

In 2021, the Telangana government designated the existing BC Commission as “Dedicated Commission” and vested powers in it to conduct the empirical survey, BC Commission sources said. The petitioners contended that the election notification for local bodies should be issued only after the survey is done. The high court's directive came on a petition filed by BRS leader Sravan Dasoju, who among others sought a direction to the Telangana government, the state election commission and other respondents to forthwith undertake the exercise. The HC posted the matter for hearing on August 27.